January 5th, 2010
I think it’s appropriate to take a “clean, fresh” look at our new laundry room, just like the start of the new year feels to me.
Back in October, Pete and I laid the Marmoleum tile, an all-natural linoleum flooring, and our washer and dryer arrived soon afterward.
We opted for the pedestals, both for additional storage [...]
October 16th, 2009
Attention all Chicago-area homeowners: The Historic Chicago Bungalow and Green Home Expo takes place TOMORROW, Saturday, October 17 at the Merchandise Mart from 10:00 a.m. to 4:00 p.m.
Speakers include Lou Manfredini, “Mr. Fix-It” from WGN Radio, Bob Yapp, former host of the PBS show The House Doctor, and Kelly Edwards, co-host of HGTV’s Design [...]
September 3rd, 2009
Mainly because of our bat issue, we really needed to have a cap installed on our furnace chimney. Pete still thought the little bugger somehow got into our house via the chimney and through a small gap where the duct ends over the hot water tank. I was skeptical — it seemed a little far-fetched [...]
August 27th, 2009
After multiple trips to Tile Outlet (a great discount tile source if you’re in the Chicago area), additional trips to King of Tile (also a good place for deals but not as big) and Century Tile, we finally ended our quest for bathroom tile at The Tile Shop in Deerfield.
At first I assumed that [...]
June 30th, 2009
Earlier last week I talked about our decision to go with Icynene®, a low-density, open-cell foam for our attic insulation. Insulation Day finally arrived on Thursday, a day I had been anxiously anticipating.
Unfortunately for the guys, the HVAC wasn’t yet up and running, and it was going to be a hot, hot day. By [...]
March 3rd, 2009
…so little time.
Where to begin?
Pete and I spent much of the weekend scraping walls. Pete had already started on the TV room last week, but we dug into it again.
The walls in this room looked bad before, but now they really look like crap.
Nice, huh?
We knew this room needed work, but this is a [...]
February 25th, 2009
Last December I pre-ordered Sarah Susanka’s latest book, Not So Big Remodeling: Tailoring Your Home for the Way You Really Live,and it finally arrived yesterday!
According to the Editorial Review:
More Big Ideas from Sarah Susanka including hundreds of Not So Big ideas that can beautifully and affordably transform any home. Sometimes small changes can have a [...]
February 12th, 2009
As I mentioned the other day, I went downtown to the Recorder of Deeds in the Cook County building at 118 N. Clark to try and learn more about the history of our house.
Down in the basement you’ll find large binders containing handwritten logs which recorded all of the transactions related to your house (along [...]
November 29th, 2008
Last Monday we decided it would be really nice to have a bathroom, or at least a working toilet, in the basement for the 14 guests we were having on Thanksgiving Day. Pete’s father will be 89 next week, so we certainly don’t want him to have to climb stairs, but with five kids in [...]
May 13th, 2008
Over the weekend I stocked up on a bunch of great native plants at the Lake County Forest Preserve District Native Plant Sale. The event took place Saturday and Sunday at Independence Grove in Libertyville, which is a beautiful place to go for biking, kayaking or hanging out — I’ve never been there before, but [...]
May 6th, 2008
It was an action-packed weekend here at Bungalow Chronicles. After a family obligation Sunday afternoon, Pete and I drove out to The Natural Garden in St. Charles. It’s not the most convenient nursery to go to, and it took a solid hour’s drive, but they are one of the few nurseries in the area who [...]
May 1st, 2008
I’ve been a proponent of gardening with native plants for well over 10 years now. Not only are there an interesting and beautiful variety of forbs (flowers) and grasses, but they’re drought-tolerant, disease-resistant and they need little attention once they get going. By no means am I an expert gardener (and truth be told I [...]
April 29th, 2008
When we planted our arborvitae recently, we discovered that the PO had the downspout from the house attached to plastic tubing which is buried under the grass and empties out to the alley. Tsk, tsk. That’s going to change.
Thanks to a post I read a while back at Our Tiny Oak Park Bungalow, I [...]
April 18th, 2008
We usually plant a few tomatoes in our yard, but we won’t be planting any vegetables at all this summer for a couple reasons: one, I’d rather concentrate the overall garden design this year and see where a small vegetable patch will fit in with it; and two, I just don’t feel like dealing with [...]
April 4th, 2008
No, don’t worry, no baseball talk here, however I apologize as this information pertains to Illinois residents only, so I’ll make it short. I’m talking Citizens Utility Board (CUB), a non-profit organization dedicated to representing the interests of residential utility customers across the state of Illinois. CUB works hard to block rate hikes and help [...]
March 27th, 2008
In the previous house I had a collage of old black-and-white family photos on the wall, but in this house my wall space is more limited, mainly because of the windows. However we do have the stairway wall leading to the attic, which for me is a perfect spot for these types of photos.
Several [...]
February 27th, 2008
I will freely admit that I’m challenged when it comes to covering my windows. In our previous house, we had plain metal blinds in our bedrooms. I usually would just go with something that wasn’t too expensive, because I never knew what to do to make it look good. Oh, I tried to dress it [...]
February 22nd, 2008
Finally, a shot of the antique dining table we purchased in Michigan last month. I’ll take more and show you how it looks with all the leaves in place once I clean up. It looks better in the house than it did in the store, so we’re really happy with it! And the chairs we [...]
February 19th, 2008
We accomplished a fair amount of little things over the weekend. We temporarily stashed most of our books on the attic staircase during the woodwork and plaster work phase, and even though they were covered with newspaper and plastic, the books were filthy. So I cleaned them off and put them back in place in [...]
February 2nd, 2008
In all the research I was doing earlier about patching plaster walls, I don’t know why I didn’t come across this excellent Preservation Brief from the National Park Service.
It first gives the historical background of plaster and then talks about common plaster problems and the various ways to repair the plaster depending on the type [...]